College basketball: Big East ready to rock

It’s loomed over all 16 of its teams for more than two months, and finally it’s here: Big East play opens this week, debated 18-game schedule and all.

Matt Stout

It’s loomed over all 16 of its teams for more than two months, and finally it’s here: Big East play opens this week, debated 18-game schedule and all.

Since league coaches made their preseason picks of who’ll finish where, the landscape has already changed — quite drastically in some places — and the surprises shouldn’t end now. Here’s a glance at each team (listed in overall record entering Saturday) with what it’s done well and what each need to improve upon.

The Good: There’s a lot of it. The Panthers entered Saturday as the league’s lone undefeated team, scoring notable wins over Duke and Washington. Pitt is again one of the league’s stingiest defensive teams — it’s one of three teams holding opponents under 60 points per game — and DeJaun Blair (12.1 points, 10.1 rebounds) has been the conference’s best freshman outside upstate New York.

The Bad: The loss of senior Mike Cook (10.4 points per game) to a torn ACL is a big blow to this team, from both an offensive and emotional standpoint. The former Eastern Carolina transfer was a starter all last season at small forward, and his presence will be hard to replace.

The Good: Bob Huggins had turned up the Mountaineers’ defensive intensity five-fold in his first season — they’re top-five in the league in nearly every major category — while making them the league’s highest scoring team (86.1 points per game) entering Saturday. That helped make Huggins just the sixth active coach to reach the 600-win plateau, doing so in a 77-54 win at Canisius.

The Bad: The Mountaineers schedule has been fluff at best before Saturday’s showdown with Oklahoma, and their lack of size has shown itself. They’re 11th in rebounding and has no one among the top 20 individual rebound leaders.

The Good: The combination of Jerel McNeal and Dominic James continues to prove itself as the best in the league, and the rest of the Golden Eagles haven’t been too bad either. Lazar Hayward (13.1 points, 61.4 shooting percentage) is another viable offensive option, and as a team, Marquette has won at Wisconsin and hung with Duke in the final of the Maui Invitational. The Eagles, no doubt, are real again.

The Bad: Injuries have hampered Marquette this year. It’s already lost Trevor Mbakwe and Scott Christopherson for the season and two of its best perimeter shooters Dan Fitzgerald and David Cubillan have missed time. It’s helped explain its inconsistency from behind the 3-point line (35.1 percent).

The Good: Scottie Reynolds (16.8 points per game) continues to be one of the conference’s premier scorers and is a big reason Villanova is averaging more than 80 points per game entering Saturday. The Wildcats have also won close games, though at times they didn’t have to: They beat Central Florida, George Mason, LSU and Temple by an average of 6.25 points per game.

The Bad: Villanova’s defense is a work-in-progress at best. It’s allowing nearly 70 points per game and teams are shooting 43.9 percent against it, the fourth highest among Big East teams. It’s allowing the fewest rebounds by an opponent per game in the league, but is nearly dead-last in blocks (3.10 per game).

The Good: As usual, the Hoyas are as good a defensive team in the league as it’s allowing a league-low 55.7 points per game. Though their offensive numbers aren’t off the charts — their halfcourt offense rarely allows it to explode for huge numbers — the Hoyas are balanced: Five players are averaging more than nine points per game, and they’re shooting better than 51 percent as a team.

The Bad: Roy Hibbert (12 points, 7.0 rebounds per game) hasn’t been the dominant player the Preseason Big East Player of the Year should be. He’s more just part of a very, very good team. The Hoyas are also the worst free-throw shooting team in the league.

The Good: Despite some early-season worries, UConn has been an overwhelming defensive force at times, and once again, leads the Big East in both blocks and field-goal percentage defense. They’ve also been balanced (all five starters are averaging in double figures) but has had someone carry them when they need to. They’re also feeling better about themselves than they’ve had in the last few seasons.

The Bad: The Huskies have taken steps forward with the same group that went 17-14 a year ago, but in their two games against ranked teams, they faltered late and eventually lost. They’ve also haven’t shot as well as they would have liked (33.1 from 3-point land), and are still in need of that signature win.

The Good: The Irish aren’t the offensive power they were last year, but they may be just as good or better. They beat Kansas State on national television back in early December and they’re the league’s top 3-point shooting time (43.1 percent), top distributors (19.6 per game) and are second in defensive rebounds (27.9 per game).

The Bad: Notre Dame has had lapses defensively at times, though not catastrophic, but it does lack of premiere defensive presence in the middle. Its 3.8 blocks per game as a team are less than the conference’s individual leader Hamady Ndiaye (4.0).

The Good: Freshmen Donte’ Green and Jonny Flynn are both among the top 15 scorers in the league, and with the loss of Eric Devendorf to a torn ACL, they become even more important. As a team, its averaging 85.8 points a game and have shot the ball better than anyone (51.6 percent).

The Bad: The Orangemen will sorely miss Devendorf’s presence and they found out the hard way how good the A-10 is this year with home losses to UMass and URI, and how far their defense needs to come. They’re allowing nearly 76 points per game, a number trumped in the Big East by only DePaul (80.0) and Seton Hall (81.5).

The Good: Coach Rick Pitino reached the 500-win plateau and the Cardinals’ defense has been stubborn, allowing 61 points per game. Earl Clark is also one of three league players averaging double figures in both points (13.2) and rebounds (10.7).

The Bad: The season so far has been more about what’s gone wrong than right. The former top-10 team has lost nearly its entire frontcourt to injury and Derrick Caracter, one of its most talented players, has continued to experience off-the-court problems, at one time forcing Pitino to suspend him for a game. Louisville recovered from similar problems last year, but with two extra Big East games, the road will be even tougher this year.

The Good: Fully healthy, Geoff McDermott has been the versatile threat the Friars hope he’d be and Weyinmi Efejuku (13.1 points per game) has been one of the best scorers off the bench for any Big East team. The Friars have also challenged themselves this season, beating Boston College, Florida State, Arkansas while losing close to Miami and South Carolina.

The Bad: The Friars (45.9 percent) haven’t shot much better than their opponents (45.5) which is a problem. They looked to be on a roll earlier this season, but consecutive losses to URI and South Carolina seemed to have brought them back to Earth. They’ve been inconsistent since, playing poorly in a close win over Sacred Heart before turning it back on against the Seminoles last Friday.

The rest:

(11) Seton Hall (8-3): One of the league’s top offenses (85.3 per game) has struggled mightily on defense (league-worst 81.5 points allowed). Brian Laing (league-best 19.9 points per game) is a serious threat.

(12) USF (8-4): Kentrell Gransberry (14.3 points, 10.7 points) has carried over his play from last season when he was the conference’s only player to average double figures. USF had a seven-game win streak snapped by Wake Forest back on Dec. 19.

(13) St. John’s (6-4): Its offense is averaging just over 70 points per game, and it’s struggles start on the boards: The Red Storm rank last in the conference in rebounding (35.6 per game).

(14) Rutgers (7-5): The league’s worst offensive team (65.5 points per game) has a pure shot-blocker in Ndiaye. But its 39.8 team shooting percentage may be its biggest problem.

(15) Cincinnati (4-7): The Bearcats have endured one of the league’s toughest schedules. They’ve lost five straight (the last three to N.C. State, Memphis and Xavier, respectively) entering Saturday.

(16) DePaul (3-7): Draelon Burns (19.4 points per game) is trying to carry an inexperienced team that has lost bad games to North Carolina A&T and UIC.